In recent years, the development of vehicles, walking robots, and the likes that move autonomously in a predetermined moving area such as a limited area indoors or outdoors, i.e., the so-called “autonomous moving bodies” has been pursued. An autonomous moving body like this not only recognizes the own position of the autonomous moving body within a moving area, but also creates a traveling path, along which the autonomous mobbing body attempts to move, in advance or in real-time.
If an obstacle exists in the moving area when the autonomous moving body creates a traveling path, the autonomous moving body creates a traveling path in such a manner that the autonomous moving body does not collide with the obstacle. Note that examples of the obstacle include a fixed obstacle that is fixed and thus do not move, and a moving obstacle that moves such as people and other robots. With regard to the fixed obstacle, by creating a traveling path while defining the vicinity of the obstacle as a prohibited area at the start, any problem can be prevented from occurring even in cases where the traveling path is created in a successive manner. However, the moving obstacle causes various problems because it moves. For example, if such a moving obstacle has a large moving speed, the position of the moving obstacle changes whenever a new traveling path is created, and therefore the traveling path is widely changed. As a result, there is a possibility the autonomous moving body could not track the path completely and could collide with the obstacle. In particular, if a moving obstacle moves so as to come relatively closer to the autonomous moving body, the risk of collision increases.
Patent document 1 discloses an autonomous moving device that stores a predetermined maximum speed, an acceleration, and a deceleration as traveling control conditions, uses a traveling control target area that is defined ahead of the moving device in the traveling direction in advance, and changes the setting of the traveling speed in the traveling direction based on the control conditions only when an obstacle is detected within the traveling control area. In the autonomous moving device disclosed in Patent document 1, since the moving device does not react to any obstacle located outside the traveling control area, the number of reactions to objects other than obstacles on the passageway such as walls can be reduced. Therefore, it is possible to perform efficient traveling at a higher speed in comparison to cases where the traveling control area is not used.
Further, Patent document 2 discloses a bipedal walking robot that determines whether the walking of the robot should be stopped or not based on the relative distance and the relative angle between the robot and another moving body. Then, when the walking should be stopped, the bipedal robot performs control so that the moving distance that the bipedal robot moves before coming to a standstill becomes equal to or shorter than a predetermined distance. In the bipedal walking robot disclosed in Patent document 2, since the bipedal walking robot can stop at or within a predetermined distance when the robot comes closer to another moving body, the collision between the robot and the moving body can be avoided.
[Patent Document 1]
    Japanese Patent No. 3879860[Patent Document 2]    Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-299001